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Athadu story at a glance

Nandu alias Nanda Gopal is a professional Killer. He is employed by opposition leader Siva Reddy (Sayaji Shinde) for a murder attempt on himself as a part of his ploy to win the elections. In this operation, unexpectedly someone kills Siva Reddy for real and police chase Nandu. And in an escape course, accidentally he becomes the reason for the death of Parthu (Rajiv Kanakala). Parthu is a run-away youngster who wants to return home after 12 years. Nandu assumes the identity of Parthu and enters his household in a remote village to escape from the cops. The rest of the story is all about how Nandu solves all the problems.

Trade

The production of Athadu went haywire and the budget increased beyond level. The movie performed reasonably well at the box office. But still it remained as a cost failure then. But the movie was a super hit on TV. The producer achieved breakeven after the TV rights of the movie was renewed for a record Rs. 3.5 crore.

Highlights

Athadu was the first combination of Mahesh Babu and Trivikram. They later went on to do Khaleja few years later.

This is the first combination of Trisha and Mahesh Babu. Later they appeared together in Sainikudu as well.

Sidelights

The house set erected in the movie became very popular after the movie release. Many films have been shot in the same set and it is being used even today.

Technically, Trivikram has used 160 cameras to capture the climax fight of the movie but it apparently couldn’t have the intended effect and so largely went unnoticed.

Athadu was one of the highest watched movies on TV till date. The TV rights of the movie were renewed by MAA recently for a whopping Rs. 3.5 crore which is a record for any TV rights renewal.

The movie was dubbed into Tamil and Malayalam languages as Nandu and Target respectively. Athadu has also been later remade in Hindi as Ek The Power of One and in Bengali as Wanted.

The script for this movie was loosely based on the book ‘Point of Impact’.